More than Meets the Eye

Lester woke up most mornings thinking about one thing:  speed and where to find it.  Until he did, his life, his loves, and skateboarding all felt like a lost cause.  He could quit whenever he wanted he told himself, and today—Friday, October 13— he would.  Never mind, the fact he had complete serotonin syndrome with Netflix, weed, and the absence of a roommate he could bear the harshest withdrawals.  

So Lester began.  He took a bong hit in his shower before actually cleaning himself.  Brushing his teeth, tying his tie, and putting on his work shoes, he remarked about the cloudy weather to his cat, Alex.  No one knew about his habit besides his therapist and his ex.  Everyone assumed he had taken things for his ADHD despite never having a prescription for Adderall or anything of the like.  His daily life as a journalist required fast comprehension, something he felt the drugs helped with.   

Stepping into the street, everything became even more dark and Lester began to shiver.  A few blocks from his place he stopped for Dunkin Donuts, before boarding the L train downtown to the office.  His typical before work ritual included an intravenous injection (he decided to make day one of his sobriety today because he had exhausted all his resources).  His blood shot eyes read a text from his dealer, Beau, before looking up to order coffee.  The harsh remnants of a two day bender somehow never stopped him from his responsibilities.       

“Hello, my friend,” the cashier greeted him.  He responded in a jovial manner before waving back with a clammy, sweaty palm— perhaps the first sign of withdrawals. 

“Large black coffee with two shots espresso,” Lester told the man.  As he drifted on with his coffee, he felt his thoughts drift too.  He only had to make things through the day.  Afterwards, not only would he get paid, but he could also rest.  The first few hours of work had a way different soundtrack than the last few: what started as death and destruction, merged to death and acceptance.  He then closed his laptop and headed out at the accepted time.  As soon as he did, the sky opened up with rain.  Sprinting down to the subway from the exposed brick building, Lester stole a news magazine from a stand to keep his face dry.  He considered his dry cleaned shirt a lost cause. 

He came back to his apartment after the roundabout journey, feeling dead.  To dry, he picked up a portable fan and lay flat on his wood kitchen floor towels which he placed a yoga mat on.  His roommate left banana bread with a note saying: Gone upstate for the weekend.  See you on Monday!  In the alley of his building, amidst the sound of rain, he heard ambulance sirens and men running.  He confirmed he locked his door and sat back down on the floor.  Rather than exercise or do some kind of hobby, Lester drank a Gatorade.  

Although he often couldn’t help drinking on speed, he could help not doing speed while drinking something besides alcohol.  Weird thoughts returned as if his body told him once again to get back to work.  Outside, the rain sprayed from gutters and flooded city streets while mixing with trash and other rotten smells.  If he had any strength, he would crack a window a look out over his fire escape.    

“Come out tonight,” Beau, his dealer, texted him. 

“I wish I could,” he took a sip of beer before typing again, “I’m detoxing.” 

“Fuck that.  I know the D.J at Story.  I have some chemicals for you to try,” Lester felt excited again.

“Any more good stuff?” he asked in a breathless way, referring to his usual.

“No, I have something better for you,”  Beau shot back.  Lester hung up after considering such a response for two seconds.  However, thirty minutes later, Lester stood ready at the door to his apartment with an umbrella for wherever the night would take him.  He took a cab to Beau’s place and felt euphoric all of the sudden after arguing at full volume with the taximan about Mets baseball. 

“West 57th, sir” Lester handed him $25 and walked past the gate of Beau’s building.  He arrived somewhere on the first floor of the place, forgetting how nice the neighborhood felt compared to his own.  He didn’t get the invitation to come over often to Beau’s.  The relationship between a consumer and dealer of drugs does not often involve genuine friendship.    

Beau came from a good family in the city.  His Dad had invented an insulin replacement (among other things) and they used the money to buy real estate across New York and Miami.  Lester walked up the stairs past someone in a bright yellow rain coat. 

“Fear of death” Lester heard someone say as they walked past him on the stairs.  He couldn’t quite tell how close the person had come to him before walking away.  A few moments later, Lester sees Beau’s bespectacled face at a door and walks in. 

“Welcome to my house of horrors,” Beau says laughing and gesturing him in to the apartment.  The place looked medieval with all the old science equipment like beakers with odd residue.  A mini fridge filled with Bud-light stood in the corner as a confusing bit.  “Here’s what I was telling you about,” Beau said.  In his hand, he held an eye dropper with a clear-light blue-ish liquid.  “It’s my special mix of acid and 2C.  I call it E-den.  Try one before we leave for the club.” 

The two walked out in the night not 15 minutes after swallowing more than a few drops deposited first on the tongue.  The two tested things together sometimes, but Lester never felt proud of his lack of discernment with drugs.  He also did an hour later after his heart stopped in the line for the club.  Paramedics said he hyper-ventilated.  No prior history of medical emergencies.  Beau had stood over him panicked while the situation unfolded. 

In a moment, Beau ran out of the hospital, where Lester lay unconscious, for a cigarette.  He came back two hours later with a note he shoved in the face of Lester, who couldn’t move or talk: I have the cure.  He drew the hospital room curtain and stabbed him with a needle.  Lester’s heart pounded twice, and he rose from the bed gasping for air, feeling fully vital.  Once he realized he screamed.  All of the sudden, Lester finds himself back on the floor of his apartment in the same clothes he had come back from work in (as if nothing had happened). 

He looked at his phone which had a missed call from Beau with surprise and terror.  He then dropped his face down as if he had done something wrong.  Only an hour and a half had passed since he got back from the office not nearly enough time for him to change and meet Beau thirty streets away.  He decided to call Beau instead of texting him.  He picked up on the first ring, sensing Lester thought, his overwhelming fear of last night’s events. 

“I think… I have found myself in some sort of dream,” he confessed as soon as he heard Beau’s labored breathing on the other line.  The feeling of talking to someone felt like a simulation, and Lester couldn’t hold the phone to his face without shaking.   

“I can’t make any more of the stuff.  I just can’t,” he told him.  The two let a certain silence hang in the air as if one of them would say something to break a case wide open.  Someone had done something so wrong and deserved an apology.  “I didn’t want to tell you, Lester.  I considered us friends, you know?”

“What stuff?” Lester asked.  He even if he did consider Beau a friend, what good could friends do an alternate drug-induced reality? 

“The E-den.  People keep having different dreams…  The thing knows your fears.  If you felt like you could overdose on speed then the E-den takes your impression of the event…” Beau couldn’t continue without Lester yelling at him through the phone. 

“You mean to say you gave me the bullshit before?” both understood what Lester had said on a deeper level.  “Did I just go to the hospital or not?”  Lester asked. 

“I don’t know how to explain.  Look at the news, Les.  Everyone knows about E-den now”  Beau responded before hanging up.  Sprinting to the nearest computer, Lester found his backpack hiding across the room under the couch.  He took out his laptop and googled “news”.  Alex, the cat, noticing the commotion, eyed him as he figured out a disastrous high. 

The first article detailed a new designer drug which caused people to jump from windows and assault law enforcement.  Across New York people would wake up in a coma after taking the drug and proceed to either jump from a building or take violent action against society as a whole (violence, crime etc).  Nothing in the article from “experts” talked about Lester’s excursion to the nightclub. 

“Why did I think I had gone to the hospital?” he texted Beau.  He then fixated on the empty fire escape as rain made the metal sound like a futuristic orchestra.  Lester doesn’t remember much from the next few hours, but he did jump 4 stories from his fire escape when he found out.  He survived and police knew why.  The drug built a special pain tolerance among its victims.  Even after everything wore off, Lester wanted more speed.  He became a Christian and moved back with his parents.      

For years after Lester talked about the effect the day had on him.  He posted long social media sermons about God.  He gave the motivational speeches to all and at any point.  Today, he has a private jet to take him from different religious conferences because a “global faith network” he created thrives on tax free donations.  He still does drugs despite faking sobriety.  He hasn’t spoken to Beau in years.